Coming up at Toronto Summer Music – MISSING

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I’ve been following the development of MISSING; an opera with text by Marie Clements and music by Brian Current since early 2017. There’s an article principally about the project in the Summer 2017 edition of Opera Canada. But I’ve yet to see the opera on stage. It’s had multiple productions in Western Canada but this July will see it’s first performance east of the Lakehead when Toronto Summer Music present it in concert format. That’s at Koerner Hall on July 24th.

Marion Newman in MISSING at Pacific Opera Victoria – Photo: Dean Kalyan

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CCOC reprises the Monkiest King

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This year’s Canadian Children’s Opera Company main show is a new production of Alice Ho and Marjorie Chan’s The Monkiest King which the company previously performed in 2018.  This time it was at Harbourfront Centre Theatre which offered some additional opportunities and some challenges with its multi level configuration but also some sight line issues.

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Red Like Fruit explores the stories we don’t tell and why we don’t tell them.

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“…it’s weirder and less funny and less charming than the plays I like to write, and also I’ve taken out a lot of the conventions, conventions that I like, the ones that make us want to watch plays.”  So writes Hannah Moscovitch about her 2024 play Red Like Fruit which opened at Soulpepper on Thursday night as part of Luminato in a production directed by Christian Barry.

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Kafka Fragments

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Gyorgy Kurtág’s Kafka Fragments of 1986 is a pretty weird piece.  It sets forty short fragments (anything from less than a minute to maybe six and a half) from Kafka’s diaries and journals for soprano and violin, which is unusual enough.  But it’s the range of techniques involved for both musicians which i think contributes to why people want to perform them and some people at least to listen to them.

Just about every technique fior violin, short of smashing it, is called for; very rapid staccato phrases, pizzicato, percussive effects of various kinds etc.  The vocal part is perhaps even more varied; singing (but with crazy intervals and very high notes), Sprechstimme, speaking, whispering, chattering, screaming ad more.  Each fragment basically deals with an emotion (mostly negative!) and is set accordingly so the emotional range is pretty much as wide as the range of techniques. Continue reading →

Met HD 2025/26

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It’s that time of year when I look at what the Met will be offering in cinemas in the coming season.  Once again they will be offering eight shows and they are a mix of fairly bold, quite interesting and frankly dull.  Here goes…

October 18th: Bellini – La Somnabula.  Rolando Villazon directs a new production which is interesting.  I haven’t seen any of his work as a director so don’t really know what to expect.  It does have Nadine Sierra as Amina which is a big plus. Continue reading →

Looking ahead to June

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Things slow down just a little bit in June but with both Luminato and Opera 5’s Opera festival it’s not that quiet.  Here’s what’s coming down:

  • June 5th to 7th at Daniels Spectrum there’s Nigamon/Tunai; an exploration of Indigenous perspectives from North and South America (part of Luminato)
  • June 6th at Metropolitan United Krisztina Szabó leads in Queen of the Night Communion, another Luminato show.

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Samuel Mariño at the opera

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Male soprano Samuel Mariño was back in town for another concert with Tafelmusik; this time at Koerner Hall.  There were three concerts and I caught the last one on Sunday afternoon.  The repertoire consisted of opera recitatives and arias from the 18th century interspersed with related instrumental numbers.

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Tales of an Urban Indian

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I’ve heard a lot of good things about Barrie’s Talk is Free Theatre so I was very happy to be able to catch one of their shows on tour in Toronto.  The show is Tales of an Urban Indian and it’s playing in the basement of Hope United Church on the Danforth.  I think the show originally toured on a converted bus which would explain the set up; which is a narrow space with a row of chairs either side (actually two rows on one side) so the space seats about thirty five.  It’s been around since 2009 and has toured across Canada, the US and overseas nad, despite the things that have happened on the “Reconciliation” agenda since then it still feels fresh and timely.

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